


not enough blood in the waves

by thisismydesignn



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Blow Jobs, Boys Kissing, Canonical Character Death, Hand Jobs, Homophobic Language, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Kissing, M/M, Oral Sex, Power Dynamics, Psychopathology & Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisismydesignn/pseuds/thisismydesignn
Summary: Patrick makes Henry an offer.Henry tries to refuse. He really does.





	not enough blood in the waves

**Author's Note:**

> I absolutely loved It (2017), but did find myself wanting more of the Bowers gang - they're horrible, of course, but such well-drawn characters in the book that I would've loved to see more of them. (And Nicholas Hamilton and Owen Teague were such excellent casting choices, of course I was hoping for more!)
> 
> This is a combination of book and movie canon mixed in with my own personal headcanons, and the title is from Fall Out Boy's "Irresistible."

“Let me show you something,” Patrick says the first time it happens, and had Henry known better, had any sense of self-preservation whatsoever, he would’ve stopped it then and there.

Would’ve, _should’ve,_ and yet—

“What?” he asks instead, and Patrick’s tone is sickly sweet as he coaxes him, “Just something. It feels good.”

“ _What_?” Henry repeats, and then Patrick’s hands are on his belt and the questions die in his throat. His mind is a chorus of _no_ , of _I want_ , and above all else _I can’t want_ ; the latter wins out and he’s shoving Patrick away before he can convince himself it’s okay ( _it’s not okay, it’s not but fuck_ —), getting to his feet as he zips up his pants and stumbles backwards, searching for a way out of the Barrens, a path away from Hockstetter. “I don’t go for that queer shit,” he insists as he spies the way they came and makes a beeline for it, hacking away at the foliage that scrapes at his face, his neck. “Try anything like that again and I’ll kill you, you fucking pansy.”

He chances a look back right before Patrick falls out of sight. He’s sitting precisely where Henry left him, flicking his lighter open and shut, looking entirely unbothered. “Freak,” Henry murmurs, turning back to hack through the underbrush as he makes his way toward home, terrified that his father will be able to smell it on him— what happened, how badly he wanted it.

_I didn’t_ , he insists silently, then aloud, to no one in particular: “I fucking _didn’t._ ”

He can’t even convince himself.

\---

The first time Henry lets it happen, he initiates it. This is one of Henry’s _rules_ , Patrick has realized. It’s only okay, only allowed if Henry feels like he’s in control. When his father decides to teach him a lesson: that’s when Henry needs the illusion of power most, and Patrick doesn’t mind. Watches him cower, hears him snap at Victor and Belch to leave him alone, sees them oblige, but Patrick, well— Patrick doesn’t scare quite so easily. He keeps his distance until Henry picks himself up, face still flushed red with anger, with shame. He pulls open the car door and climbs into the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut behind him; a moment passes, two, and then he’s sticking his head out the open window, yelling to Patrick, “You coming or what?”

Only then does Patrick move to join Henry, sliding into the passenger seat beside him. He waits for him to reach for the keys, to start the car, to get them the hell out of there, but Henry appears to have no such intentions, drumming his fingers erratically against the wheel until he turns to Patrick, licks his chapped lips and says, voice low, “That thing you wanted to show me…”

The silence between them lasts only moments but to Henry, it’s an eternity. _Don’t make me say it, don’t make me fucking ask_ , and he can tell from the look on Hockstetter’s face that he’s debating— watching him struggle, _enjoying_ it, probably, _sick fuck_ , and still Henry wants—

And Patrick nods, face giving away nothing as he leans over to unbutton, unzip Henry’s jeans and pull out his cock, already half-hard with adrenaline, with anticipation.

Patrick starts to move his hand and Henry is transfixed, lips parted, gaze focused on his cock as it slips through Patrick’s fist, growing harder, growing longer. His skin is soft, smooth, Patrick notes detachedly, a sharp contrast to the rough edges of his personality, the malice behind his rare smiles. It’s almost jarring, but nothing about Henry surprises Patrick, not anymore.

He’s already breathing hard, hips lifting off the seat in a silent plea for _more_ , when Patrick reaches for his own belt. He’s got his free hand inside his boxers before Henry speaks up, sounding disgusted— sounding _afraid_. “What the hell d’you think you’re doing?”

Patrick’s rhythm doesn’t falter even as he wraps a hand around his own cock, tugging it through the hole in his boxers and starting to jack himself slow and steady. He’s not fully hard yet, knows he might not be able to make himself come, but he’s testing the waters, toeing the razor-thin line they’re walking. “You don’t have to do anything,” he tells Henry, meeting the edge of his wary gaze, “But let me.” He changes the subject, asks the question before Henry can protest, can stop to think about how _queer_ this all is; nods toward Henry’s cock and says, “Want me to put it in my mouth?”

Henry’s groan is answer enough, and Patrick can tell from the moment his lips touch the tip of Henry’s dick he’s not going to last. He’s insistent, pushing up to meet Patrick’s mouth; Patrick takes him in down to the root, tasting the salt on his skin, feeling the weight of Henry’s cock on his tongue. His own swells in his hand, catching him almost by surprise— he _likes_ this, likes taking Henry apart under the illusion of giving him back control that was never his to begin with. (As if Henry can read his mind, Patrick feels a heavy hand rest on the back of his neck, sliding around to press against his throat, vaguely threatening. Patrick swallows and Henry moans, feeling his throat move under his fingers, around his cock: _making a paper man crumble,_ Patrick thinks, pulls back to breathe. He takes Henry deep once more, feels him tremble, smiles around his cock and speeds up the hand between his own legs.)

Henry’s fingers are twisted in Patrick’s hair when his breathing goes shallow, grip tightening, but Patrick doesn’t try to pull away. His hips stutter as he comes and Patrick chokes a bit, mouth full, a single streak of white dripping down his chin. “Fuck,” Henry mutters, torn somewhere between panic and awe, as Patrick looks up at him and swallows. Henry’s eyes don’t leave his, and Patrick’s grin is nothing short of a leer as he finishes himself off like it’s nothing. (For Patrick, it is nothing, or close enough: there’s a brief spike of pleasure, a thrill at breaking the _rules_ , but Patrick feels no different— not empty, not satisfied— it just _is_ , though the look on Henry’s face tells a different story.)

Disgusted, horrified (with Patrick, with himself), Henry pushes him away, but there’s no fight left in him— only the knowledge that they’re well past the point of no return. He tucks himself in and zips up his jeans, hands shaking, looking everywhere but at Patrick. He knows he shouldn’t, but Patrick can’t help himself: “You liked it,” he says, teeth bared in something resembling a smile. “Never seen anyone come so hard.”

“Yeah, and I bet you’ve seen _that_ plenty,” Henry says, gratified that his voice only trembles the slightest bit. He doesn’t deny, doesn’t dare acknowledge Patrick’s first comment; still can’t quite meet his gaze as he threatens, “Don’t you dare tell anyone about this, you faggot piece of shit.”

The words don’t hurt Patrick— insults, fists, he _doesn’t mind_ — but he knows they strengthen Henry’s illusion of power, and that, he’s not sure he can let slide. “Kiss me,” he says, the words measured, deliberate: it’s not a request. Henry looks taken aback, and before he can open his mouth to spout more vitriol, Patrick continues, “Kiss me, and I’ll keep your secret.”

“You’re fucking insane,” Henry tells him, but he doesn’t say _no_ , doesn’t move to leave the car, knuckles white on the door handle as he steels himself. “One kiss,” Patrick says, “But a real kiss, none of that pussy shit— I want you to taste your come on my tongue.” Henry winces; it’s almost a talent, to be so crude it makes _Henry Bowers_ cringe, and the sly smile that crosses Patrick’s face as he watches Henry deliberate is anything but innocent.

Henry makes up his mind all at once and reaches for Patrick, those white knuckles gripping his shoulder, the back of his neck as he drags him down into a kiss so messy it splits Patrick’s lip, leaves Henry panting. “Happy now, freak?” Henry demands, shoving Patrick back, wiping a hand across his mouth and groping once more for the handle. “Quite,” Patrick tells him just as he gets the door open, stumbling out of the car like he can’t get away quickly enough. He leans back in just long enough to tell Patrick to _enjoy it, because it’s never gonna happen again,_ and slams the door shut with the conviction of a man who believes his own lies.

\---

Because of course it happens again. And again, and again, and it ends the same every time (starts the same, too, Henry desperate, wanting, Patrick simply _there_ ). Neither of them dares to claim they’re powerless to stop it, not when power is everything in a situation such as theirs, and still—

It gets to the point where neither of them needs an excuse, not really. Watching Henry torture the Losers, Patrick begins to appreciate arousal in a way he never quite has before. (Henry pushing the small, wheezing Kaspbrak to the ground, ordering Belch to tackle Trashmouth Tozier when he comes to his defense—) he finds he likes watching Henry make them struggle, seeing his eyes darken when Patrick flicks open his lighter to inflict his own brand of pain.

Occasionally he’ll catch Henry staring, licking his lips; will feel his cock swell in his jeans and smirk, shameless as ever. He lets Henry drag him to the Barrens after incidents like these, drunk on adrenaline; goes willingly when Henry pushes him to his knees and takes everything he has to give, grinning all the while.

More often than not, though, their encounters are courtesy of one Butch Bowers and the bruises he leaves on Henry’s skin, the gunshots ringing in his ears, the words that echo in Henry’s mind as he tugs viciously at Patrick’s hair, refuses to look him in the eye.

One day, as summer approaches, is particularly brutal: Patrick’s hardly lifted a fist to knock on Henry’s door before Henry is pulling it open with shaking hands, left eye a kaleidoscope of blue and purple, skin over his cheekbone split. He drags Patrick inside without a word, fingers curling around the hem of his shirt to tug it over his head before the door has even clicked shut behind them.

They fuck in Henry’s bedroom, both of them knowing full well what will happen if they’re caught. The danger, the rage, the _fear_ fuels each touch, far from gentle but further from Butch’s fists. (It’s the first and only time Henry initiates the kiss, biting Patrick’s lip, gasping against his mouth; _control_ , Patrick thinks, almost understands, and bites right back.)

\---

Then the MISSING posters start to appear, and it’s like something in Henry snaps. Where before he was spiteful, angry, he’s now cruel, violent— he’ll use his knife in ways he’d only ever threatened, and while Patrick doesn’t mind (feels his own bloodlust spike in ways he hasn’t _wanted_ since Avery went still beneath his hands), Victor and Belch are more reluctant. Henry loses his patience more and more quickly, but Patrick’s always quick to oblige— and when Henry tells him to go after the tubby new kid in the Barrens, Patrick doesn’t hesitate.

\---

(Patrick Hockstetter’s face grins out from MISSING posters all over Derry, and Henry Bowers is too far gone to do a damn thing about it.

Months later, he wishes that he had.)

He finds himself in the sewers beneath Derry, drenched in greywater and his father’s blood— and he’s not alone.

“Let me show you something,” the corpse of Patrick Hockstetter mocks from a face twisted and deformed, mouth torn into a permanent grin, flesh rotting off his bones as he reaches out a skeletal hand. Henry doesn’t ask _what_ this time, paralyzed by a terror far deeper than he ever dreamed possible, but Patrick volunteers it anyway:

“We all float down here, Henry…come on. _It feels good_.” His voice is hoarse, creaking like wind through the boards of the abandoned Neibolt house, his teeth black, tattered clothes soaked through with blood and sewage. “Come with me, and you’ll float too.”

Henry takes one last look at those hands whose touch he used to crave, at the bloody horror of Patrick’s lips, and does what he should’ve done from the start.

He runs.


End file.
